Understanding the term historically Nationalism Understanding the term historically

HISTORICIZING NATIONS and NATIONALISM Often used very loosely for a feeling of collective identity This course seeks to HISTORICIZE nationalism See it as a specific kind of ideology that is a product of a certain kind of History Nationalism = forms of organization / feelings / loyalty to, a territorially bounded entity = NATION “Nation” is abstract, un-definable, yet has borders Nation also a fairly recent form of political organization in the form of the “nation-state”

De-Naturalizing the Nation Nationalism seeks to NATURALIZE itself: as an ideology, a feeling, that is ALWAYS present, something in human DNA almost! Its success means, living in 21st C, easy to believe the NATURALNESS of the nation; that the nation-state only way of organizing POLITIES Not all forms of ANTI-FOREIGN or even ANTI-COLONIAL movements are “Nationalist” 1857 Revolt in India was not a “Nationalist” revolt because aim was not to create a NATION, but to RESTORE Mughals or Marathas or other IMPERIAL forms In China, anti-Manchu sentiments, e.g. among Taiping, don’t appeal to a “nation” but to legitimacy of Empire, mandate of heaven. In Japan, e.g. we learn that in response to Perry and threat, intellectuals said that feelings of nationalism had to INCULCATED, promoted. So clearly “nationalism” not exist NATURALLY

Nation: An Imagined Community Benedict Anderson calls the nation an “Imagined Community;” and how that imagination, aka nationalism, was created at specific times and places Nation replaces earlier “imagined communities” (religious or imperial) New forms of communications, such as printing presses and PRINT CAPITALISM in the 18th C, help people think similarly, as ONE, about the same issues, rather than localized concerns

The Novelty of Nationalism Nationalism emerges around 18thC, in the New world. Countries in North and South America first to organize their states as NATIONS They are the first imagine a deep sense of camaraderie between all people inhabiting a spatially bounded territory, AND to insist that this loyalty SUPERCEDED others AND to use it to give LEGITIMACY to their new states Although nationalists WANTED this ideology to supersede other loyalties, did not always do so BECAUSE, despite what it claimed, nationalism did not ACTUALLY eliminate differences or inequalities, e.g. of class, race, gender This was as true for the New World, the Old World, and in the even older world of Asia

Modernity and the Nation NATION, therefore, is a MODERN concept, and form of political organization Equally important is to recognize that “nationalism” was the result of a PROCESS where people had to be persuaded to put nation above all other loyalties Eugen Weber argued that it took till the early 20th century to turn “Peasants into Frenchmen” The process of HOW this happens in Asia how local, imperial, and other loyalties are converted to “nationalism” is what we will study

Modernity Ambiguity and Nationalism We have already noted reasons why there was ambiguity towards modernization in Asia (connected with colonialism) As nationalism overtakes India, China, and Japan, and this in itself is a product of the modern world, we will see how Asian nationalists seek to RESOLVE ambiguities towards modernization through the adoption of different varieties of nationalism So as we encounter a VARIETY of nationalisms, keep the above in mind. Even though some variants of nationalism may seem unfamiliar, hardly “modern,” we will try to understand why they are all modern phenomena